A minor jumbled sort of rant on gay marriage

So I re-stumbled upon Keith Olbermann's impassioned speech about gay marriage and Prop 8 due to its inclusion in AfterEllen.com's Top 8 LGBT Political Videos of 2008 list just now... (Check it out, the first vid is an anti-Prop 8 musical starring Jack Black as Jesus.) And on second watch it still resonated so I thought I'd share:



Transcript here.

It seems like the main reason people (and when I say people, I mean religious bigots and deluded conservatives- so a loose definition y'know) do oppose gay marriage is the sheer symbolism of the thing- civil unions are accompanied by most of the same legal entitlements as marriages, right? But "Seperate but equal" is by definition segregationist and therefore just not true, it's a signifier of second-class citizenship. Recognising gay marriages as legally and socially completely equal would mean that the validity of homosexual relationships would have to be taught in schools and accepted everywhere- that they would be recognised as equally good, morally and practically. This is an article on same-sex marriage and equality by Wilkinson & Kitzinger which I've only skim read so far because it's holidays and my brain is disintegrating into melted ice-cream mush, but looks stimulating. Love doesn't discriminate and neither should the law! Oh look, I'm reduced to yelling slogans. That's okay though. It's holidays.

So anyway... Everyone got all het up over the ridiculousness that was Prop 8 last month, in America and around the world, but has anyone noticed that there is relatively no public movement for marriage equality in Australia? Nothing halfway as publicised in the US, so far as I've noticed anyway. Maybe there are just less of us here. I do think that the legalising of same-sex marriages is inevitable, like other human rights advancements that we look back on now and wonder why the fuck it took so long. But what to do in the meantime eh? http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/.

And in other LGBT news, the Pope is an arsehole! Fsk fsk fsk, I am so not into organised religion right now.

FLOW: Can anyone really own water?

Flow is a new documentary by Irena Salina about the global water crisis that looks at the growing privatisation of the global water supply by corporations, whether we're running out of lifejuice and widespread ramifications of such things. It's won a bunch of important wreaths and shit, should be in indie cinemas early next year. Looks scary!

http://www.flowthefilm.com/

Dashing through the snow, etc.

IS IT CAN BE XMAS TIEM NOW PLEES?

#474; In which you better Watch Out

This one kinda dilutes the message, but gosh dang whadda classic: (& lol)

I don't really mind Xmas (as I've taken to calling it in a really feeble secular gesture, considering that the X actually stands for Christ in Greek lettering or someshit- whatever, it LOOKS different!*) as like... a cultural tradition, familial bonding sort of event. I guess. Not that my family is doing excessive amounts bonding though- it does feel pretty pathetic to be cruising the internet on Xmas Day! (Also I first typed that as "excessive amounts of bondage", which is true and pretty comforting...) From my room I can hear neighbours on every side getting drunk and singing ABBA kareoke, makes me feel sorta deprived and lonelylike. No big jolly crazy times here! But at least we don't have to go to church. And I got some presents. So nothing to complain about really...

I will though, because gotta say I do wish my laptop knew it was Xmas. Maybe then it would stop giving me so much shit (on this most holy of days)- the volume control is having an epileptic fit and Amanda Palmer's blog won't open, in addition to which it has managed to summon me for a daily web trawl on what should really be a completely web trawl-free day. I've even checked my Facebook, for fuck's sake! Alas poor Yorrick etc.

*EDIT: Language Log of course has a significantly more sensible position on the matter, from a while back... Bah humbug.

(Almost!)

Austenbook

Are you doing the Austen comparitive study for HSC English and CBF actually reading Pride & Przhej? Do you tend to spend all your life on the internet instead? Then look no further than Pride and Prejudice, the FaceBook feed! Gold gold gold.

(From the same site there is also this fanfic that basically summarises/parodies the book "in the form of Austen's juvenilia". Not quite as brilliant but just putting it out there yes.)

opposite day.

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest
loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again
and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must
come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again
and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself
down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have
I heard anything more divine’? ”

—Nietzsche

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall, picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I

skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone’s inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the lightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.

—Simon Armitage

Picasso painting with light, 1949:

The world is an amazing place.

Year 12 and so forth is sehr tiring, but I found this nice thing via frankie:

With all the shit that has been going on recently all over the world, it’s
nice to see something as heartwarming, silly and gosh-darn ‘hands across the
globe’ as these dancing videos from Where the Hell is Matt? Don’t question it – just go and watch and sniffle a bit and realise that, really, we’re all the same.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Sunday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, Sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all
Sunday morning
Sunday morning
Sunday morning

- The Velvet Underground

Oh xkcd, you complete me:

Also, this article:

Happiness is contagious, spreading among friends, neighbors, siblings and
spouses like the flu, according to a large study that for the first time shows
how emotion can ripple through clusters of people who may not even know each
other.

The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed over 20 years found
that people who are happy or become happy boost the chances that someone they
know will be happy. The power of happiness, moreover, can span another degree of
separation, elevating the mood of that person's husband, wife, brother, sister,
friend or next-door neighbor.

...Previous studies have documented the common experience that one person's
emotions can influence another's -- laughter can trigger guffaws in others;
seeing someone smile can momentarily lift one's spirits. But the new study is
the first to find that happiness can spread across groups for an extended
period.

When one person in the network became happy, the chances that a friend,
sibling, spouse or next-door neighbor would become happy increased between 8
percent and 34 percent, the researchers found. The effect continued through
three degrees of separation, although it dropped progressively from about 15
percent to 10 percent to about 6 percent before disappearing.

...Unhappiness also appeared to be catching, but not as strongly: An unhappy connection increased the chances of being unhappy by about 7 percent on average, while a happy connection increased the chances of being happy by about 9 percent. While having more friends is important for a person's happiness, the benefit of having more friends appears to be canceled out if they are unhappy, the researchers found.

Kind of makes sense, kind of doesn't so much, but makes me want to administer hugs all round either way!

Sexy Exciting Things #1

So yesterday I gave my slapdash BOW proposal presentation, including this beautiful video called Women in Art by Philip Scott Johnson which my VA class seemed to like and maybe you will too. It basically morphs together female faces from 500 years of Western portraiture and I won't go into how it relates to my BOW but I will say that it's mesmerising and elegantly done and I reccommend it for an overview of painting through the ages, sweet Bach tunes and hot laydeez! It's a hit on YouTube...




Also, below we have the Kansas City Public Library: I wonder if they're ever out of the titles featured out teh front? How pissed would you be if they were like sorry no Charlotte's Web for you sir, onto the waiting list! Sue the bastards for all they have I say!



For more wacky wacky buildings visit 50 Strange Buildings of the World or http://unusual-architecture.com/. Feats of engineering and/or the imagination abound!

synchronised sinking.

Disclaimer: Moody post! Don't read on!

So it's 1:00 AM exactly on a... Wednesday morning? Yes that's about right. I've messed myself around all day and managed to come out thoroughly unprepared for my second and third HSC assessment tasks tomorrow (today?) and Thursday. Thus, self loathing time! I'm not sure what I'm talking about, it's been an odd few days and several different factors have culminated in an urge to overshare, how regrettable...

What I am thinking about right now is this: (in handy bullet point format!)

• unrealistic expectations (of self, others, relationships both friendly and romantic, humanity as a whole, etc)
• subsequent disappointment (I am pathetic, others are flawed, noone really knows what everyone else wants and if they did would they give it to them?, the planet is fucked, etc)
• emotional and/or physical connections: will I ever be satisfied? How the heck do you make people like you anyway?
• the incredible, strange, sometimes wonderful but mostly frightening changes I and presumably most of my friends are going through right now. In the head. Other places too I guess. The ravages of puberty leave noone unscathed. New bodies we don't understand? Sure, that's actually old news by now. But everything else is changing too. It's hard to put into words. It's probably called life experience, or waking the fuck up, or similar... There are all these new things in my mind, mini intellectual awakenings and attitude shifts and emotions, emotions.
• I can no longer use the word 'belonging' in ordinary speech or writing without being punched in the face by a disgruntled Advanced English student but can I just say that I'm struggling here. Maybe you are too, who knows? I don't know. You can tell me if you like. I won't know what to say though. I never do. (Oh God /wrists Bodhi, build a frigging bridge.)
• self-expression reallt. I suppose that's what this is all about. Again, sorry for making my loathsome thoughts and general headspace public. Although it's not like anyone's chaining you to a desk and making you read it. At least, I hope not! You should really get that checked out if they are dear...

Anyway. Listening to The Lucksmiths on repeat is soothing. Dear friend, have I ever recommended a song called Fiction to you? If not, I do so now. It's soft and lovely and just that little bit wistful... Ah wistful. That's how I'm feeling a little bit wistful right now. That, and mildly depressed...

Oh shit gentle reader, you've just lost several minutes of your life reading this bile, several minutes that you'll never get back. I myself wasted almost half an hour writing it! A sorry state of affairs, this whole being-alive thing has turned out to be. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. Opinion of the millisecond: I do not in fact like Chuck Palahniuk, his writing is brusque and arrogant and trashy. Not bad at one liners though. On this banal thought, I leave you! Off to find a more effective cure for stress, insomnia, and a quiet sneaking sort of loneliness. Bonne nuit.

P.S. Bodhi uses too much punctuation: (Y/N)?

A little too late to be of any significance in the Hornsby Girls Jersey Wars, but...

Who is adidas?

The money: $8.3 billion annual consolidated revenue in financial year 2005
The labels: Reebok, adidas, TaylorMade
The boss: Herbert Hainer, Chief Executive Officer
The workers: In 2007, adidas-branded products were made by workers in more than 1,080 contract factories in 65 countries.
The locations: China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia to name a few. Also the Americas and some European countries. Source: http://www.adidas.com/

What's the problem?

While conditions have improved in a few of adidas' supplier factories, most workers producing for adidas still work long hours under extreme pressure for poverty wages. Among other things,adidas needs to do much more to ensure that trade union rights are respected within its supply chain. In 2006–2007 adidas removed orders from suppliers with a track record of respecting unions rights and placed them into a supplier factory with a history that is far from clean. adidas needs to be ensuring workers rights, decent wages and conditions are being upheld across all of its supplier factories, all of the time.

We are encouraging adidas to change – find out more at Offside! update

Poverty wages

adidas won’t commit to a living wage for workers making adidas products. We define a living wage as one which, for a full-time working week (without overtime), would be enough for a family to meet its basic needs and allow a small amount for discretionary spending.
We are on track to deliver on all our integration synergy targets for 2007 including €100 million in revenue synergies and €17.5 million in net cost savings. And net income will increase at a rate approaching 15%.
– Herbert Hainer, adidas CEO. Source: adidas quarterly report 2007

Who pays when adidas saves?

Rights denied

adidas continues to get its gear made in countries and free trade zones where it is either illegal, extremely difficult, or prohibited, for workers to organise themselves into trade unions. It is near impossible for workers to get better conditions (such as better pay) if they cannot get together and form a united, organised group to approach their boss.

Job insecurity

Two huge adidas supplier factories in Indonesia closed in November 2006 leaving 10,500 workers without jobs. A third factory employing more than 9,000 workers has been significantly “scaled down”. We are concerned that adidas’s actions are likely to be one of the main reasons the factories had to close. These workers were left high and dry with no work and not all of their back pay and entitlements. Find out more

Commitment phobia

adidas moves its production where it likes, whenever it likes and does not give any bonuses to factories that respect workers rights. adidas does not ban or severely restrict short-term contracts in its supplier factories. This means that workers can lose their jobs from one contract to the next and be left with nothing.

Find out more about how sports brands are tackling the problem of sweatshops in their industry in our Offside! report

What's the solution?

To take action now

Source: Oxfam Australia

If you ever need a stranger...

In the name of procrastination (Iamterrible):

Fifty People, One Question: New York by Crush & Lovely.

The goddamn friggy embed code won't work even for Vimeo but click it and see.

The other thing I'm checking out on a vaguely related note (strangers you see!) is Richard Renaldi's not entirely outstanding photographic series 'Touching Strangers', the premise of which is he asks some total strangers in the street to touch each other then takes a picture. Awkward, yes. Occasionally moving. I quite like 'Kim and Yoshi'.

Also, fifty things you might not know about Barack Obama! He is a leftie (left-handed, that is), speaks Spanish, listens to Bob Dylan. Favourite movies: Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Favourite TV shows: M*A*S*H and The Wire. He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee. Fools! In other news, Joan Jett has released a version of Silent Night for seasonal compilation album A Blackheart Christmas featuring excerpts from Obama's victory speech... My iTunes is malfunctioning along with everything else on this dang computer, but sounds bizarre oui?

Zip Zip USB Memory Brick

Aw! Not that I particularly care for or lust over techy stuff, but these are Australian and pretty cute:

"Each Zip Zip Memory Brick is a high speed USB 2.0 flash
memory stick disguised in a plastic toy building brick.

Zip Zip Memory Bricks connect together.

When in use the lid clips onto the memory component, preventing accidental loss.

1 GB - $29 USD
2 GB - $40 USD
4 GB - $59 USD"

I wanna play lego now! I used to have the coolest dragon castle set...

Earth to Roadrunner Records: AFP is not fat, and neither are we!

I will preface this by saying there is something terribly wrong with my internet connection and I can't embed anything from YouTube, do help if you can. Anyway, on with the show!

So a few weeks ago Amanda Palmer released the music video for Leeds United - I love the song, not huuge on the video but that's not the point - and it must be said that she is not fat. Not that it matters, but not in the video and not at all. I think she's a fucking babe. So one has to wonder why Roadrunner Records, on top of giving her shit about putting out a record that has "no commercial potential" amongst other things, wanted her to re-cut it so that shots of her belly wouldn't be included, basically telling her she looked to fat. She told them to fuck off! Woo!

So she blogged about it here and all her fans are full of righteous indignation, and they're starting a Belly Solidarity movement! From http://www.theshadowbox.net/forum/index.php?topic=6054.0, lads and lasses are sending in pics of their own big/small/hairy/smooth/stretch-marked/scarred/pierced/pregnant/WHATEVER bellies to make a statement about healthy body image for all and generally stick it to the man. You can email your own photos to doritojoe89@gmail.com, who is going to send them to Roadrunner HQ in protest.

Look at pictures of gigantic metal dudes on their label, eg Dino from Fear Factory, and ask yourself have THEY ever been censored? I could go on a huge rant here about the media & society's sexist double standards and unrealistic goals of "perfection", but I wouldn't want to insult your intelligence- if the hypocrisy and general awfulness of it all isn't plainly evident to y'all, someone needs a thinking cap and/or an independantly functioning brain. Long live the punk cabaret! Long live Amanda Fucking Palmer! Long live Rebellyon!!

P.S. For more on AP & The Belly, watch this. It's so cute!

Marjorie is dead.

Above is Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie being amusing about language and pseudo-intellectualism, they remind me of that pair of sexy academics in The Crucible analysis video we watched last week. This is Stephen Fry being clever and charming and interesting about the joys of language. I particularly like the rant at pedants, which I am kind of sometimes sort of, but not about everything! Mainly about apostrophes! And I'm usually wrong anyway... But yes, the man has an incredible mind and he blogs, whoopee! Anyway, an excerpt:

"My language (as the sum of my discourses, as linguistic strata that betray my history, as geology or archaeology betrays history) is my language and it is a piece of who I am, perhaps even the defining piece. In my case it is in part a classical ruin, inherited boulders of Tacitus and Cicero bleaching in the sun along with grass-overrun elements of Thucydides and Aeschylus … not because I was a classical scholar, but because I was taught by classical scholars and grew up on poets, dramatists and novelists who knew the classics as intimately as most people of my generation know the Beatles and the Stones. Without knowing it therefore, heroic Ciceronian clausulae and elaborate Tacitan litotes can always be found in the English of people like me. In part classical ruin, then, my language in particular has also mixed in it elements of my three Ws, my particular world wide web, my w.w.w, Wodehouse, Waugh and Wilde, three writers who greatly excited my imagination and stimulated my language glands like no other. I would add Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Peter Cook and Alan Bennett as others of whom I am consciously aware. But the language of British movies, classic novels, sixties and seventies broadcasters like Malcolm Muggeridge, James Cameron, Alistair Cooke, John Ebden, Anthony Quinton, Robert Robinson, they all played their part in informing my spoken and written utterance too, not to mention the elemental styles which in turn informed their language. As Henry Higgins reminds us in Pygmalion, English is for all of us the language of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible. We unconsciously use the tropes, tricks and figures of our great writers, just as we might without knowing it use a tierce de Picardie or a diminished seventh when humming in the shower. And to our native English today we have added the language of American sitcom and drama, American movies and Australian soap operas.

I’ve used this analogy before, but I’ll use it again. Think of London. Some of its outline was determined by the Romans who conquered it two thousand years ago, since then atop the ruins of the Roman, Saxon, Dark Age and Norman London was constructed a medieval city of winding streets, jostling half-timbered mansions and soaring stone cathedrals and churches. Then came, after the Tudor and Jacobean palaces and halls and after the restoration a period of renewed classical elements, the squares and avenues of Georgian and Regency London, elegant, spacious and harmonious. The Victorians brought long suburban streets, warehouses, libraries, schools, town halls and railway stations and in the twentieth century arrived a new architecture, office towers, corporate headquarters, airports, housing projects in glass and concrete, American and European statements of self conscious modernity, statehood, brutalism, socialism, capitalism and democracy. It isn’t I think, too much of a strain to see the history of our language in similar terms. A long sticky flypaper onto which at varying times of their importance the church, royalty, aristocracy, industry, commerce and international entertainment have accreted themselves. Saxon and Roman elements overlaid with the Norman French and Chaucerian and Church medieval English. A great renaissance of Shakespeare, the Bible of King James, Milton and Dryden leading into the classical English of Johnson and Pope. The Victorian English of industry, Dickens and music hall giving way to the English of the twentieth century, all the way through the arrival of radio and cinema, the political language of fascism, communism, socialism and finance, the Americanisms, the street talk, the rock and roll, the corporate speak, the computer jargon … and here we are. Glass and concrete sentences right next to half-timbered Elizabethan phrases, a Starbucks of an utterance dwelling in an expression that once belonged to a Victorian banker, an Apple Store of an accent in a converted Georgian merchant’s lingo. You get the point. Whether or not we are aware of the difference between a transitive verb and a preposition, a verb and a vowel, we are willy-nilly, heirs to Marlowe and Swift, just as that new Waitrose is a descendant (albeit a bastard one) of the Parthenon. Bear in mind that phrase willy-nilly, by the way – I shall return to it later. For the meantime, seal it in a baggie and stash it in your hoodie. Or fold it in scented tissue and lay it tenderly in your hope chest, according to taste."

Bit o' this, bit o' that

It's my mum's birthday today, there are bugs in my hair, all the gel pens are running out. My legs are itchy and my feet are SO GODDAMN ITCHY. Today was pathetic, I am a waste of space. Procrastination! Who needs to pass year 12? Not I!

Urrf Patrick Wolf is no longer a ranga, to add to the utter awfulness of my life. He has new hair, it's silvery blonde. He also has a new double album coming out next February, half of which will feature Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot. That half will be "punky and aggressive" and named 'Battle'. These are all the wonderful things I learn from month-old NME articles when I should be starting one hundred million assessments!

"He said that 'Battle' was inspired by a period of depression he suffered a few years ago."I was having to play songs about a past relationship, I'd been through three management changes, I was breaking up, going insane," Wolf told NME.COM. "I revelled in my depression and began attacking politics and the people around me. It's an aggressive noise punk record."Wolf added that the 'light' side of the album, in contrast to 'Battle''s sombre tone, will be more uplifting. "I've found my true love, who has practically saved my life," he explained. He added: "That's in contrast to the inspiration for 'Battle', which was me thinking, 'Will I ever be in love again or will I be a bachelor for the rest of my life?'"

Wine of the day: Zonin Asti Dolce. So sweet, so sparkling!

Art of the day: The Truth About Comets and Little Girls
by Dorothea Tanning, 1945


I was trying to find Conposition with Figures on a Terrace by Leonor Fini or Judith by Richard Oelze, because they fit my mood today very rather better, but Google images has let me down. This painting is undeniably lovely though. Apparently it's a reaction against the rhetorical use of the femme-enfant by Andre Breton and other male Surrealists... Stick it to the maan Melusine!

Word of the day: dingle: (n): a small wooded hollow.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons
I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time
I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
- Dylan Thomas

I have a mandolin, I play it all day long, it makes me want to kill myself...

...going on eighteen!

While 16 will forever be saddled with a sweet image, even if the song is about sullying that very innocence, 17 is pure angst on wheels. To hear the songwriters of the last 40 years tell it, to be 17 is to be miserable, angry, depressed and quite possibly suicidal. Songs celebrating the free and easy side of 17 are very much in the minority. Boyd Bennett, an unheralded rockabilly player who reckoned Bill Haley had ripped him off, had one lone hit in 1955, with a rocking number called “Seventeen.” It went, “Seventeen, hot rod queen/Cutest girl you’ve ever seen/Tell the world I’m really keen/On my hepcat doll of seventeen.” A charmingly dated scenario, to be sure, but not the true 17. In “Sexy + 17,” the Stray Cats looked backward to the ‘50s—as they did in all their musical endeavors—to find something unthreatening to admire about the number. The dearth of positive 17 songs certainly stems from the fact that the number has become inextricably associated with its age equivalent in human years.

The most joyous moment in pop 17-ness has to be the opening couplet of “I Saw Her Standing There.” “Well she was just seventeen/and you know what I mean” is as much a part of the rock vernacular as “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Maybe if that crooked number had been part of that ecstatic song’s title, things might have turned around for 17. But the Beatles went for “I Saw Her Standing There” and henceforth, 16 out of every 17 “17” songs have been sung from the point of view of someone extremely miserable.

Janis Ian, who had an unlikely hit in 1966 with “Society’s Child,” at the precocious age of 15 (and that’s pre- Tiffany and TRL) scored an even bigger hit nearly a decade later, with “At Seventeen,” a first-person chronicle of that age’s particular pain, with details that we may never see the likes of again. Lines like, “To those of us who knew the pain/Of valentines that never came/And those whose names were never called/When choosing sides for basketball” will always send douche chills shooting up the spines of people who lived through the era when this song was all over the radio. Winning a sort of Oscar in its field, “At Seventeen” has earned a hallowed place in I Hate Myself and I Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard by Tom Reynolds, which I highly recommend, and a cursory Google search reveals that many people feel share the belief that the song reaches dangerous levels of moroseness. Because of its ubiquity on the airwaves during the singer-songwriter-friendly ‘70s, “At Seventeen” had a virtual lock on the number for several years, successfully withstanding a gob of spit and an elbow jab by the Sex Pistols, whose “Seventeen” declared “I’m a lazy sod!” but alas, the only number Mr. Lydon utters in the song is actually12 more than 17 (“You’re only 29/Got a lot to learn”). Pistols contemporaries The Cure went for “17” glory with “Seventeen Seconds,” the catchiest song ever written about the last 17 seconds in the life of a person who has just committed suicide. Tracey Ullman obviously saw the appropriateness of 17 for her song “You Broke My Heart in 17 Places” (a pretty nifty song, the chorus of which adds to the titular phrase, “Shepherd’s Bush was only one.”) Unsung Chicago rocker Ike Reilly has a sleazy masterpiece called “Hip Hop Thighs #17,” but it gets disqualified for numerical arbitrariness. Jimmy Eat World’s “Seventeen” gets disqualified for never mentioning the number. Tim McGraw’s “Seventeen” gets disqualified for being by Tim McGraw. Ditto “Seventeen” by Winger.

Rising from some strange, pillowy planet, “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene is a favorite song of robot geishas worldwide, as well as one of mine. Sadly, and I do mean that, there is no mention of the titular number, although the line “Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me” gets said 13 times in a row. There is no justice. Ladytron’s “Seventeen,” which is as icily cool as one would expect from this gelid Liverpool outfit, decadently declares, “They only want you when you're seventeen/When you're twenty-one you're no fun.” With its throbbing dance-floor beat, this one really gives my winning choice a run for its money.

Keren Ann, the exotically heritaged singer songwriter who cannot seem to garner any negative press, comes close to seventeen-ly sublimity with the stately “Seventeen,” sounding something like what a young, alto-voiced Leonard Cohen might have written. A beautiful song, but the sophistication of the arrangement and the singer’s knowing perspective serve to belie the song’s central plaint, “Look at me/I’m only seventeen,” rendering it an odd choice for the quintessential “17” song. For that distinction, a song really must embody the whole seventeen-ian ethos. And that’s why there’s only one real choice.

Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” from 1982’s Bella Donna has the quaking, feverish intensity of a very confused, very sexy teenager, on the cusp of adulthood. It announces itself boldly in a spray of 16th notes (16th notes—that has to be significant) and Ms. Nicks delivers a whomping vocal that I defy you not to respect in the morning. Even Joan Cusack’s campy performance of the song in School of Rock only serves to reinforce Eo17’s iconic status. Here’s a song that’s embraced by the once and future nerds and the whirling ingénues among us, as well as those of us who fall somewhere in between.
Stevie Nicks - "Edge of Seventeen"

* Random fact about “Edge of Seventeen” – The title comes from a mishearing of the phrase, “the age of seventeen,” reportedly drawled by Mrs. Tom Petty, in response to Ms. Nicks’ query as to when she had first met her husband.

by David Klein, via http://www.merryswankster.com/ Thank you to everyone who made my birthday awesome, love you kids! :)

In which I punch The Lucksmiths in the face...

Not really of course. Tali and the boys are sweet and lovely and brilliant but if one more band I love comes up to Sydney and doesn't play any all ages gigs I'll... I'll... Make some more empty threats! And on my birthday weekend too! (15th and 16th Nobember at the Hopetoun Hotel if you're overage and interested.) On the plus side, their new album is finally up for sale here. I'm not in any hurry to get it personally, seeing as I don't have a live show coming up to get-to-know-it for... Bastards. But looks promising! And I will eventually! Sigh, today is so not a good day for Bodhi...
"Happy as ever to cast their rod into exotic waterways, for First Frost The Lucksmiths decamped to Tasmania during the wintertime and found themselves in a rustic shack, working with producer Chris Townend who has crafted the band’s most dynamic album to date. Germinating from The Lucksmiths’ well-honed strummy lyrical folk pop, First Frost drifts casually into fresh terrain for the band, touching at times on glam, fuzzpop, krautrock, shoegaze, country, and even a little classic rock..! With assorted strings, horns and organs peppering the guitar-happy mix, and Tali White’s duet with The Harpoons’ Bec Rigby on the twangy "Lament of the Chiming Wedgebill", First Frost is one of the band’s finest and most diverse albums yet. And with all four members delivering the songwriting goods, The Lucksmiths’ disarming lyrical hooks shine warmer than ever."

No matter what, once midnight hits, Bjork is genius.

Top 100 Crime Fiction Novels

Dear People Who Are Studying Crime Writing For HSC Extension English 1, also People Who Happen To Be Into That Sort Of Thing Anyway:

I found some lists compiled by two crime/mystery writers' associations of the 100 greatest crime novels of all time, ten categories with ten titles each (eg. "The Golden Age", "Thrillers", "Humorous", etc...). Seeing as we're advised to read about 30 books to get a grasp of the genre and to select some related texts from, I thought I'd share with y'all what are generally accepted by the whodunit cognoscenti as worth reading-

This is the UK list from 1990 from The Hatchards Crime Companion.
This is the US list from 1995 from The Crown Crime Companion.

Enjoy!

Owned Palin. (Ahh elections are so soon aaagh!)

Palin falls prey to Canadian prankster
Posted Sun Nov 2, 2008 12:20pm AEDT Updated Sun Nov 2, 2008 12:55pm AEDT

Related Link: YouTube: Listen to the Palin prank call

US vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin fell prey to a Canadian prankster when he called her impersonating French President Nicolas Sarkozy and got her to accept an invitation to hunt baby seals.
In an over-the-top French accent, a member of the Quebec comedy duo The Masked Avengers, famous for tricking celebrities and politicians including Mr Sarkozy himself, asked if Ms Palin would take him on a hunting trip by helicopter, and then in French said they could also go kill baby seals.
An apparently oblivious Ms Palin said she thought that would be fun.
"We could have a lot of fun together as we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way," she said.
The prankster also got Ms Palin, Republican John McCain's running mate in Tuesday's US presidential election, to reveal a potential ambition for the top job in Washington.
Asked if she would like to eventually become president, the Alaska governor responded, "Well, maybe in eight years."
Ms Palin's office quickly admitted they were hoodwinked.
"Governor Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy, and other celebrities in being targeted by these pranksters. C'est la vie," Ms Palin's spokeswoman Tracy Schmitt said in an email.
During the phone call, which was played for a Montreal radio program, Ms Palin complimented the fake Mr Sarkozy on his beautiful wife, Carla Bruni, and asked him to give her a "big hug" for her.
"You added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours," Ms Palin said.
The prankster responded by complimenting Ms Palin on a notorious Hustler porn film Nailin' Paylin, which he said was a documentary of her life.
"Oh good, thank you," Ms Palin said.
Ms Palin also reassured the fake Mr Sarkozy when he said he would not want to bring Vice President Dick Cheney on a hunting trip. Mr Cheney once accidentally shot a hunting partner.
"I'll be a careful shot," she promised.
- Reuters

David Tennant leaving Doctor Who!! Noooo!

Doctor Who star David Tennant has announced he will leave the hit science-fiction series at the end of 2009.
Tennant, who has played the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord since 2006 after taking over from Christopher Eccleston, said he will leave the role after completing production on the four special episodes to be screened in the UK in 2009 and early 2010, according to report from the BBC website.
"I've had the most brilliant, bewildering and life changing time working on Doctor Who," Tennant said.
"I have loved every day of it. It would be very easy to cling on to the Tardis console forever and I fear that if I don't take a deep breath and make the decision to move on now, then I simply never will.
"You would be prising the Tardis key out of my cold dead hand. This show has been so special to me, I don't want to outstay my welcome."
No word has been given as to who will play the Doctor's 11th incarnation after he regenerates at the end of the special episodes, but a fifth series of the show has been confirmed, with long-time writer Stephen Moffett taking over executive producing duties from show-runner Russell T. Davies, who is also leaving.
"I've been lucky and honoured to work with David over the past few years - and it's not over yet, the tenth Doctor still has five spectacular hours left! After which, I might drop an anvil on his head. Or maybe a piano. A radioactive piano.
"But we're planning the most enormous and spectacular ending, so keep watching!" Davies said.

-SMH, October 30, 2008 - 10:11AM

Life as we know it is over... Gah he was so dishy. Gallavanting off to play Hamlet in an English accent? IN A MEDIOCRE FASHION? Is that what you want to do David? Well fine, fine, fine. You USED to be cute!

(Actually fine, you still are very cute. But you've hurt me. You made even the bad episodes enjoyable, something Eccleston could just never really do for me... That said the earlier seasons were kinda better written/concieved/so on. But anyway, I loved you, you bastard!)

So R.I.P. in advance, 10th Doctor. I hope you are replaced by Hugh Grant! To mark this moment, a cute jokey picture I found on the internet that will hopefully symbolise a fruitful new beginning for Mr. 11: Enjoy! Adieu!

Art of the Day: Nocturne in Black and Gold

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American-born, British-based)
1875
Oil on panel

"The ill-educated conceit of the artist ... approached the aspect of willful imposture, . . . I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."

John Ruskin was considered an authority on art and his quote was printed and re-printed in the national press. The effect on Whistler - on any artist by such a well known critic - would have been severe. Whistler sued for libel and threw everything he had at Ruskin. The trial wiped him out, and though he won the lawsuit technically, the judge only awarded one farthing in damages. Whistler lost his house and his collection of art and as he grew old he became bitter.

*Another interesting fact about Whistler I didn't copy and paste off some boring apricot-coloured website is that he was the ex-mentor and ex-friend of one Walter Sickert, yes the very Walter Sickert that crazy crazy Patricia Cornwell thinks is Jack the Ripper. Ahh, Portrait of a Killer is such a poorly written and weakly argued book! I’m completely obsessed with it… Supposedly, that frequent use of “Ha ha” in the letters the Ripper wrote to the police is a reference to Sickert’s estranged American buddy’s irritating laugh, the general upset caused by that rift somehow evidence of psychopathy and an allegedly plausible motive for slashing the throats of at least five prostitutes, probably more… You see why I like it? So somewaht entertained! http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/caseclosed.html - oh snap Patsy.

Who Killed The Dresden Dolls?

The music world actually hates me, like personally.



Aside from all the artists who are touring Aus in the next few months with no all-ages shows (The Mountain Goats, Adam Green, Final Fantasy, Stars...), The Dresden Dolls are officially on an indefinite hiatus which usually means unofficially sorta broken up which is sad. I only just realised basically, but there was this sensationalist, carefully edited sort of video put on YouTube last month...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PMsBQWXQQ90 (For some reason the embed code isn't working, no matter how carefully I select the whole code it only copies the section first visible in the box, not the whole scrollable thing. Anyone else having this problem? Anyway, thar be the URL.)

And then Amanda wrote on her blog earlier this month saying that there was a fair bit of personal conflict but they love playing together so they haven't actually broken up, and Brian says it's "open-ended" so hmm, that's basically where it's at right now. When you have loved a band since you were 13 years old, as I have The Dresden Dolls, it's all like "awhh" to see them not making music anymore...


BUT Amanda's new solo project is aymayzing, she has an incredible new album produced by Ben Folds and featuring all sorts of mad people, if you're into that thing and haven't heard it already check out http://www.myspace.com/whokilledamandapalmer. Brian has joined gypsy punk/cabaret collective The World/Inferno Friendship Society, who are alright I suppose but nothing on The Dolls. They remind me most of a slightly less feral Gogol Bordello: http://www.myspace.com/worldinferno. Dear Dressies, I am thinking of you in this difficult time! Here is the very silly and not particularly appropriate Backstabber video from 2006 to relive the good times, great classic hits... Thank you for the music!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=K9zMizbLHYk

The Hack Half Hour

If you listen to triple j with any semblance of regularity you'll probably be familiar with the "HACK" radio show on weekdays at 5:30 which basically takes a more in depth look at social issues/hot topics in Australia in an interesting, informative and entertaining way. You'll also probably then be familiar with the spin-off TV show, The Hack Half Hour (Mondays 8:30 ABC2) which has a similar format of mixing pre-recorded footage with interviews from a focus group made up of both regular people and specialists on topics like street fighting, home ownership and porn. It's been showing for a bit over a month now and I highly recommend it if you're interested in what's going on and the ways different people are thinking in the world around you.

I felt compelled to share this show after last Monday's episode in particular, which was about the importance of image in society. Personally, I reckon the sassy philosopher should have gotten more screen time. The ex-anorexic has the view that I can most relate to (and somewhat ironically, she is so stylish!) and Sophia reminds me of Tiffany from Daria. But basically, as a teenage girl watching a program about an issue that is (arguably ridiculously) high on most teenage girls' agendas, I thought it offered a balanced view (although obviously limited by a half hour time limit) and if you're interested you can download or stream the vodcast from here.

Also, if you download 'Myface' (episode 1, about social networking on the internet)- 'OLY SHIT IS THAT BREE BITES IN THE INTRO? We are living in strange times, my friends... That particular episode is well worth watching too I think, for all the MySpace and Facebook addicts out there (don't lie, you love it...) -somewhat eye-opening really. Interests me personally because that online persona has been such a big part of my life, and those of some of my friends too, for the past few years. I'm considering deleting my MySpace account, for reasons I won't expand upon right here and now... And again, it's a good episode because it presents a variety of views on internet privacy, judging people by their profiles, the impact of what you do online on your actual life, etc and I find that sort of thing quite relevant. Just thought I'd share!

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

A new webhole for Bodhi? What folly is this?! As ridiculous as it seems, and is really, I've started a "proper" blog (pah) in attempt to get off the internet. You see, I'm planning on deleting my MySpace account. Like actually. I know, right? I don't think I'm ready quite yet, but am gearing up for it- shall be such a relief to be rid of the blecherous thing after all these years of up and down alternating addiction and contempt for that godforsaken website. HOWEVER I still do kind of need/want somewhere to express myself, rave about good things, rant about bad things, share exciting new things easily and impersonally with my friends and generally procrastinate. No! Scratch that last one, I am never procrastinating again! First day of year 12 today, oh my sainted aunt, so not ready for this. But anyway- such things are awkward to do on Facebook, what with vague acquaintances and ancient family members all over my account who I can't quite bring myself to delete from my friends list (dreadfully rude). Also Facebook is quite ugly and inconvenient and terribly common. Hence, this! Also I like Blogger's archives, tagging system, general bloggishness... Yarrh.

As for the URL of this baby, I was going to make it "cankerblossome" like everything else I do on the internet, but I'm going to get sick of that one of these days, soo... Tipsy cakes are actually a bona fide baked good- silly little sweet things soaked in grog. Describes me moderately well? Haha maybe, but I just think it's the cutest thing to say, ever. Go on- say it. You know you want to! Ah, good times... So I've never actually consumed one but I have acquired a recipe from http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/ to prove it's possible:


Tipsy Cakes:
(Serves 8)


2 tbsp castor sugar
125 ml sweet sherry
4 1.5cm-thick slices of brioche (120gm, about ½ loaf), crusts removed, quartered, or sponge cake
250 gm strawberries, hulled and quartered
4 amaretti, finely chopped
60 gm flaked almonds, toasted
200 ml pouring cream, softly whipped

Custard:
800 ml milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthways
8 egg yolks
110 gm (½ cup)
caster sugar


1. For custard, place milk, scraped seeds from vanilla bean and bean in a saucepan and bring almost to the boil. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until well combined, then gradually pour in milk mixture until well combined. Return mixture to same pan and stir over low-medium heat until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not boil. Transfer to a bowl, discard vanilla bean, cover closely with plastic wrap and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled, or for up 2 days.

2. Place sugar in a bowl, add 2 tbsp boiling water, stir until dissolved, then stir in sherry. Place brioche in a flat dish, drizzle with sherry mixture, turning to soak completely.

3. Place a piece of brioche in the base of a 150ml glass or small bowl, scatter with some strawberries, then pour in approximately ¼ cup custard, sprinkle with a little chopped amaretti and almonds. Top with 2 pieces of brioche, some strawberries, cream and nuts. Repeat with remaining brioche, strawberries, custard, amaretti and almonds, then serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day.

4. *Enjoy!* See? Until next time, shine on you crazy diamond...